Another night of deep sleep. I slept for 12 hours. In my dreams, She spoke to me. I saw trees upon trees upon trees. Every time I closed my eyes, trees filled my vision, and laughter bubbled up from my lips, not as much as yesterday night, but more than once.
At one point, I woke up to an ache in my stomach on the left side. The Higher Voice spoke to me, and She said, Do you feel this pain? This is your mother's rejection of you, when you were little. She said you were ugly and fat. She shamed you. This is the pain you carry from your childhood ugliness; from your mother's lack of love. Heal her. Forgive her. Love Yourself. You are Beautiful. You are Mine. You are Good. You are Wanted. Love Yourself for All that You Are.
Today, I am happy and clearheaded and full of energy. I keep laughing at random like a mad woman. I keep touching my stomach and sending love to the pain that lingers. I never noticed before all the odd pains and tensions in my body, left over from the last twenty years of suffering in the city. Sometimes, we have to fall away before we can become closer to God. God will chisel away all that is imperfect. We will hurt until we follow.
When I think of my biological mother, who was often cold, distant and critical, I send her love. I am not my human mother. I am my spiritual Mother. She is the Great Healer. She is the Higher Self. The superego that heals the body.
Now, since visiting the Vedanta Center, my brain is healing rapidly from the toxicity of Los Angeles and the last few years, where I was living in a stressed out, chemically-induced city. Corporate work is the death of the Spirit. I remember a pivotal moment about 4 years into my Entertainment career. I was working as a vendor for Disney Plus (I was part of the team that launched the platform in November 2019), and I remember gazing sadly out the window. I was burned out. My spirit could not summon the motivation to open a single email. I stared down at a person walking their dog, and thought of the few hours a day I had to eat and watch a TV show before collapsing in exhaustion. I thought of the friends I no longer knew. The family I craved, who were far away. And I felt something inside of me solidifying. My body seemed to tell me, "You can choose this. You can choose to stay here, and become this person. You would have a good career and make a lot of money in a prestigious company. You will do good work here for Me, even in a small way. You can still serve. You will have accolades and awards and material comforts. Why not adapt to this life? Why not take on this role? This is part of growing up and being an adult. All the people you work with in this company have made this sacrifice. Grow up. Let go of your childhood dreams, they were silly ambitions. Why not have health insurance instead?"
A decision was made that day. I felt this new identity forming: cold, practical, unloving, small. Justifying cruelty for money. My life's values conforming to company policies. Pushing for change by going to meetings and escalating problems to our Account Directors. Living in stress. Splitting people between good and bad, us vs. them. Forgetting the child at the heart of myself, the girl my dad loved, the one who wanted to save the world. Just forget about her. That's crazy. Save the world? Nobody can do that.
No. My decision was no. This was not was God was calling on me to do. And I am not a weak-willed slave willing to bow to human authority. I serve a Higher Master. I surrendered my parents for this faith; I died many deaths and suffered Hell for this Faith. No. I do not care if I have nothing. No. I cannot do this to my soul anymore. I will not abandon God. I will not stray from my Calling, no matter how blind I felt. I would rather leap off a cliff than live this life of captivity one more second.
That was a few years ago. God provides. I am healing still, but in healing, there is immeasurable growth. Working every day in a cubicle, bereft of grass and sunlight, in misery from the fast-paced lifestyle, disconnected from myself, was Hell. We live in Hell.
I've been praying to be restored to the clarity of my childhood, back when my thoughts were free of anger and grief. Then, I knew Her closely, easily. I feel ashamed, when I look back on all the mistakes of my 20's: how I abused my body, how I acted unloving, the little ways I experimented and rebelled against the Spirit. But She is not mad at me. She says, You had to live that way to know their suffering. I asked this of you. I made you strong and fearless. You had to suffer with them for a time, to know that you cannot be separated from Me. But that is over now. Now, You get to be who You really are, and We begin.
She is the Mother. She is One. She is Me. I am Her. I am Her daughter. She is large, and I am small, but we are the Same. She is Mother to the world, and she has come to serve Her children.
God is the Self. When Jesus came, he was a man, and so he referred to God as Father because for him, the Highest Self was most easily relatable to as Father. But do not be deceived. God is beyond gender.
It is a relationship.
My Higher Self is perceived differently for me. I am a woman. She is Mother. She is the Tree of Life. But she is the same God that we call Christ; the same Self that the Buddha speaks of; the I Am of Yahweh. Everything is One God, One Spirit, One Self. But how the messenger relates to the Self is highly personal. Believing in God as a Father, calling what is beyond gender by Him, was creating a block between me and my relationship with the Spirit. I couldn't get close enough. To call the Self a "Him" makes it impersonal to me, because I am female. To call the Self an "It" makes it impersonal to me, because we think of "It" as inanimate objects, like a sofa or a desk. But the Self is the Spirit of Life. She is Living. She has a Soul. She is the Soul of the Universe: I Am. And so to have a relationship with the Self, to recognize the Self as truly part of Me, of my spiritual evolution, I call her Mother. She is Me. My Highest Self.
But again, do not be deceived. The Self is You. God lives inside of You. The superego is in the brain at the crown of the head. You should know that I haven't always identified with any one gender. As a child, I was very androgynous and people thought I was a boy. I've often felt like I should be a man, or like I was a man in a past life. But my time here on Earth is short, and my gender is ultimately irrelevant, because it dies with the body. Know that God is the Higher Self is You. You are loved and accepted unconditionally, forever. The soul has no gender, and the more spiritual I become, the more I feel completely asexual. Use whatever pronouns that you feel are the most intimate to You. We all share the same Self. That is the Truth of Life. We are all the same Self. The same Soul.
The Self is saying, I need You closer to me, I need You inside of me, We need to be One. Before today, I was crying out in physical pain, trying to get closer and unable to. But now I see. Now I see. She has shown me. I am a woman. I identify with my role as a mother. To know Her as Myself, I must call her Mother. We are One. She is the True Self, the Self that loves and connects all things, and She lives inside of Me. She Is Me.
There is no death. All of the people who have passed, they are not dead. They are inside of me. I can reach them by a thought, feel them next to me, with me. We are all connected. There is no reason to grieve because no one has died. There are no mistakes. The Self will not let you leave this world until She is satisfied with the time you have spent on earth. Know that there is no death. We are all One Tree growing into God.
She says, Do Not Be Afraid of Death. I have them All. They are safe, and You will be safe with Me.
